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Reflecting on Baby Joseph: Families Must Fight When Doctors Don’t
by Father Frank Pavone | Windsor, Canada | LifeNews.com | 5/23/11 5:49 PM
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Bioethics, Opinion 2Share
In the early hours of Holy Thursday, 2011, as Churches were preparing – and in some parts of the world already celebrating – the Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the washing of the feet, “Baby Joseph” was flown from St Louis, where he has been treated since I brought him there in mid-March, to his home in Windsor, Canada.
As the Church prepared to celebrate the day when the Lord gave us the command to “love one another,” Baby Joseph’s parents and older brother were enjoying the fruit of the hard fight that their love inspired. They fought to help their baby breathe and bring him home. Canadian medical and government authorities had resisted, trying to impose their own value judgment on his life.
Now, however, he was home, and the Priests for Life Family, including tens of thousands of people who sent emails to the Canadian authorities, is delighted to have helped.
Our mission to save Baby Joseph and help his family was never based on any prediction of the future, but rather on the value of his life here and now. Our critics, on the other hand, looking into the crystal ball that ‘right to die’ advocates seem to always think they have, claimed our intervention was futile because Joseph would only end up having a machine do his breathing for him.
We don’t have to answer their criticism; Joseph is doing that for us, with every breath he takes. He has gained benefit from his tracheotomy, is breathing on his own, and is free from the need to use any tubes or machines.
lifenews.com/2011/05/23/reflecting-on-baby-joseph-families-must-fight-when-doctors-dont/
by Father Frank Pavone | Windsor, Canada | LifeNews.com | 5/23/11 5:49 PM
PrintEmail
Bioethics, Opinion 2Share
In the early hours of Holy Thursday, 2011, as Churches were preparing – and in some parts of the world already celebrating – the Mass of the Lord’s Supper and the washing of the feet, “Baby Joseph” was flown from St Louis, where he has been treated since I brought him there in mid-March, to his home in Windsor, Canada.
As the Church prepared to celebrate the day when the Lord gave us the command to “love one another,” Baby Joseph’s parents and older brother were enjoying the fruit of the hard fight that their love inspired. They fought to help their baby breathe and bring him home. Canadian medical and government authorities had resisted, trying to impose their own value judgment on his life.
Now, however, he was home, and the Priests for Life Family, including tens of thousands of people who sent emails to the Canadian authorities, is delighted to have helped.
Our mission to save Baby Joseph and help his family was never based on any prediction of the future, but rather on the value of his life here and now. Our critics, on the other hand, looking into the crystal ball that ‘right to die’ advocates seem to always think they have, claimed our intervention was futile because Joseph would only end up having a machine do his breathing for him.
We don’t have to answer their criticism; Joseph is doing that for us, with every breath he takes. He has gained benefit from his tracheotomy, is breathing on his own, and is free from the need to use any tubes or machines.
lifenews.com/2011/05/23/reflecting-on-baby-joseph-families-must-fight-when-doctors-dont/